


Friendship is Best Built on Cookies

by Ishimaru_Asuka



Series: Sneak Peeks - 'The Untold Stories of Neverbeen Universe' [3]
Category: The Untold Stories of Neverbeen Universe
Genre: Cookies, First Meetings, Fluff, Friendship, Gargoyles - Freeform, Gen, Midnight Encounter, Neverbeen Universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-04-30 23:36:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,588
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5183978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ishimaru_Asuka/pseuds/Ishimaru_Asuka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Orcneas is a rather shy and indecisive Weregargoyle who lives on the attic of an empty Victorian mansion. One night when he is out to hunt he has a surprise encounter with his new neighbour. And before he even knows it he has found his first friend in centuries.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Friendship is Best Built on Cookies

**Author's Note:**

> Hey there!
> 
> This is the fourth original work of my short story collection 'The Untold Stories of Neverbeen Universe'; there are eighteen stories in total and half of them are not published yet. And maybe, hopefully, you like this 'sneak peek' enough to want to read the others, too...
> 
> Have fun reading!  
> Asuka Ishimaru

**Friendship Is Best Built on Cookies**

 

At the far end of Park Alley in Thuddington City there was a mansion built during Victorian era; and by now it was the only one of its kind in this area of town.

It was as beautiful a building as it was gloomy with gothic style arches, crenellations and pillars embroiding its black facade and hidden in a splendid garden of whispering trees, gnarled shrubs and knee-high longgrass. The heavy wooden door was barred shut and untamed nature had already claimed most of what used to be pruned to a tee generations of inhabitants ago.

It looked abandonned during the day and was eerie at night; there even was a rumour that this place was haunted.

Certainly the stately mansion had seen better and brighter days; but whereas most of the houses in the neighbourhood had to be rebuilt this one was centuries old and had survived two human World Wars...

Just like its last occupant.

Once the sun was down Orcneas climbed out of the quaint attic window and leapt soundlessly onto the steep slate roof. He was wide awake now and while others were thinking of going to bed his day had just begun.

Quietly he perched and sat; his amber eyes peered hungrily into the evening darkness.

His almost adamantine, yet leatherily smooth dark grey skin on the other hand carmouflaged him perfectly and only his mouse-grey shock of hair might betray him to his prey; he was just another shadow amongst shadows, and if he sat as perfectly still as he was wont to he would seem like but a statue between the crenellations.

Orcneas suddenly perked; his keen ears had picked up a heartbeat. So he set himself to hunt some fast food, expecting a stray cat or maybe a marten scurrying over the balkonies and upper levels of the freshly renovated villa next door. Silently he unfolded his big batlike wings, which were really just another less muscular and smaller pair of arms with superelongated clawlike fingers spreading triangular skin membranes between them and stunted thumbs.

Then he leapt and soared straight over the overgrown hedge and into the neighbour's garden, where he stealthed through the freshly cut grass and bushes towards the building. There Orcneas interlocked the thumbs of his wings behind his back to fold them and swiftly climbed up the wall, his long spiky tail swishing back and forth excitedly; he was really hungry and the sound of the unsuspecting heartbeat lured him in.

The first floor windows rushed past.

He was closing in; here came the balustrades to the second floor. Orcneas clawed his feet into the joints and bricks so his hands were free for the assault.

He heard the heartbeat loud and clear; the little heart jumped and quickened with happy little thumps. He was there, drawing back his claws for the kill-...

* * *

 

Until suddenly there was a pair of greenbrown eyes staring at him wide with curiosity beneath angelicly cute blonde curls, and he stopped dead in his tracks.

Orcneas almost lost his grip when he saw her, but he somehow managed to hold onto the bricks. He pulled himself up onto the balustrades where he sat and his amber eyes stared back at the unexpected girl doumbfoundedly.

What was the right thing to do?

His strong spiky tail swung back and forth nervously as he pondered at the awkward situation. Humans were not supposed to know creatures like him even existed. And yet here they were.

The blonde human was standing barefootedly before him, looking up at him with wondrous amazement and curiosity sparkling in her bright eyes. The girl was clad in pyjamas and clutching her teddy bear. If Orcneas was to estimate he would guess she was about seven or eight years old.

So should he pray on passing as but a fantastic dream of a child past her bedtime?

He was then interrupted in his musings when the girl tried to reach up to him in a fail attempt at touching his pointy ears and then scrunched her face in a pout as she realized she was too small.

"What are you doing?" Orcneas grumbled between his almost sabertoothlike fangs and glanced at her confusedly.

"I just wanted to know if they are really real," she explained and hugged her teddy bear tighter. Cutely she inclined her head to one side and asked innocently: "What are you?"

Taken aback he blinked; his mind was in utter turmoil. "Err... yes, they are," he answered a bit taken by surprise. "I'm a Gargoyle... well, a Weregargoyle," Orcneas at least informed her and then awkwardly pointed behind, "I live... next door."

"I see," she nodded. Then suddenly her mood brightened and she beamed at him as if the sun had just gone up. "Really? That's so great! This means we can play together," she laughed, "Let's be friends. I'm Josephine; and you?"

He was really confused by now and didn't know how to act around her. This was his first encounter with a human in his Gargoyle form, after all.

"Err... play? Aren't you afraid of me?" He perched and righted his posture before he reluctantly conceded: "...call me Orcneas."

Now it was her, who was confused.

"Why should I be afraid? You're nice," Josephine argued in der childlike logic, then she beamed again at him. "Let's play tomorrow then!"

A bit embarrassed he scratched himself behind the hornlets protuding from his mouse-grey hair and faintly grinned back at her. "You think?" Then he remarked: "Well...but I usually sleep during daytime, so-..."

"Oh!"

At that the little girl turned sad and looked up at him with big pleading eyes. "You sleep the whole day? Can't I play with you in the evening?" Josephine asked hopefully.

"Usually I'm very tired after my morning transformation," the Weregargoyle admitted. Then he jumped down to her on the balkony floor and stood straight. Orcneas was about twice as tall as the little girl before him, and he was not yet fully grown. "Well... I'm awake by sundown, anyways."

With this one sentence her hopes flew high again and the lovely girl jumped out of joy so that her blonde curls bounced about her ears.

"Great! I'm so looking forward to it; I can't wait for tomorrow evening to come!" she exulted excitedly and smiled her sunniest of smiles.

When she then sneezed and shuddered, Orcneas, who was still a bit estranged and awkward about the whole situation, remarked on her bare feet; since he remembered what the cold air of the night might do to the child he at least shielded her from the wind with his wings.

"Wow...they are awesome!" Josephine exclaimed amazed and awed.

She held out her hand to touch them and feel the almost adamantine hardness and the leathery smoothness while Orcneas felt a bit embarrassed again; he didn't deem himself as remotely interesting a person in the first place, so he didn't know what to make of her and her mirth and wonder.

Therefore he a bit reluctantly changed the topic instead, scratched his chin and murmured between his fangs: "Err... if you're cold you ought to go inside?"

However, his stomach gave off a loud and long grumbling sound, reminding the Weregargoyle that he hadn't eaten in a day, whereupon Orcneas clutched his claws over his belly with wide amber eyes out of feeling caught.

Giggling about his predicament Josephine ran off into the house and came back shortly with a jar and jutted it out to him.

"What have you got there?" Orcneas asked a bit surprised and sniffed curiously at the foreign smell.

"Choco cookies, you dummy," the girl laughed, opened the jar and held it out to him more forcefully.

"Come on, these are my favourite cookies, so you have to try!"

Orcneas growled ferally and knotted his brows. "You're quite cheeky, little one," he snarled but put his claw in the cookie jar, picked one, sniffed and inspected it again, then popped it into his jaws and crunched it with his sharp fangs. "...thanks," at least he knew some manners. "Quite sweet, but tasty," he judged and licked the last crumbs from his lips.

Then the Weregargoyle sighed deeply and perched again. "Now I'm even more hungry," he groused.

Josephine wasn't the least bit intimidated by his grumble and giggled away. Consolingly she gently patted his spikey shoulder, thrust the jar into Orcneas's claws before he knew what hit him, and smiled broadly: "Here, I give them to you! Because we're friends now."

"Err, thanks," he replied taken by surprise and blinked at the cookies inside the jar. "But is this alright? They are your favourites...", he murmured bewilderedly.

However, she just nodded and looked at him happily; her cheeks tinted in a lovely rose red.

"That's what friends do...right?"

 

His first friend in fourhundred years.

That sure sounded good.

 

"Hm," Orcneas answered affirmingly and gobbled a clawfull of cookies. But he also held out the jar to Josephine, so she could also have some.

And to shield her from the weather he spread his wings aound her again, which the girl thanked him with a cute smile.

So, in silence they sat and shared Josephine's favourite choco cookies until the jar was empty and the teenaged Weregargoyle bade his genuine little new friend good night, then flew back to his cozy attic of the Victorian mansion next door.

They surely would meet again another night, probably tomorrow.


End file.
